Applicant believes that in a retail product merchandising system, it is desirable to organize, support and display products in an aesthetically attractive manner, and in a way that is "customer friendly" (i.e., in a way that makes it convenient for customers to identify the products that meet the customer's particular needs, to examine the products and to return unpurchased products to the system). It is also desirable that the system be space efficient, and that the system allow store personnel to conveniently replace, add to, or remove the stock of products being displayed by the system.
Applicant found that with products such as baseball and/or softball gloves and mitts, designing a product merchandising system to meet the foregoing objectives was particularly challenging, primarily because of the particular configuration of the gloves and mitts. As is well known, a baseball and/or softball glove or mitt generally has a front face which is concave to form a ball receiving pocket. The mitt has a hand receiving opening, a thumb stall and one or more finger stalls into which the wearer's fingers are at least partially inserted. The mitt also has a web or backstop secured to and extending between the margins of the thumb stall and the next adjacent finger stall (i.e., the index finger stall). The portions of the glove or mitt which form the pocket, the hand receiving opening, the thumb stall and the finger stalls are relatively thick, because they are padded or cushioned to protect a person's hand from impact from a baseball or softball. The web is relatively thin, because it does not cover a part of the person's hand. Such a glove or mitt configuration made it a challenge to design a merchandising system which can support and display baseball and softball gloves and mitts in a manner which is (i) aesthetically attractive, (ii) space efficient, (iii) consumer friendly, and (iv) convenient for enabling store personnel to replace, add to or remove the supply of gloves and/or mitts in the system.
The present invention provides a new and useful merchandising system designed to support and display products such as baseball/softball gloves and/or mitts in a manner which is (i) aesthetically attractive, (ii) space efficient, (iii) consumer friendly, and (iv) convenient for enabling store personnel to replace, add to, or remove the stock of items in the system.
Further, it should be understood that in this application reference to a product as a "glove" is intended to mean a baseball or softball glove or mitt.
According to the present invention, a product merchandising system includes an upright store fixture with a front side and one or more hanger arms coupled with the upright store fixture. Each hanger arm has (i) a slide (or descent) portion which extends forwardly and angularly downward from a location on the upright store fixture to allow for gravity feed of articles hung thereon, (ii) a stop member near the lower end of the slide portion, (iii) a front portion extending forward from the lower end of the slide portion to define a product replacement area, and (iv) a support device at the forward end of the front portion. The front portion of each hanger arm extends forward from the slide portion a sufficient distance to provide customers with a convenient location for returning a product that has been removed from a hanger arm and examined by the customer.
According to the preferred embodiment, one or more horizontal mounting bars are connected to the front side of the upright store fixture, and the rear end of each hanger arm has coupling structure configured to engage a horizontal mounting bar, to couple the hanger arm with the upright store fixture.
A plurality of product/clip combinations are suspended from each hanger arm. Each product/clip combination comprises a product and a clip releasably engaging a predetermined portion of the product. The clip has a hook configured to releasably engage the hanger arm at any location rearward of the support device and to suspend the product/clip combination from the hanger arm. The hook and the slide portion of the hanger arm are configured to enable a product/clip combination suspended from the hanger arm to slide downward along the slide portion under the influence of gravity. Moreover, the hook enables the product/clip combination to be removable from the hanger arm by moving the clip laterally relative to the hanger arm, thereby to unhook the product/clip combination from the hanger arm.
When the product comprises a glove, the clip releasably engages the web of the glove and suspends the glove in a predetermined orientation from a hanger arm. Specifically, the glove is suspended with the concave front face of the glove facing the forward end of the hanger arm. When a plurality of gloves are suspended in that orientation on the slide portion of a hanger arm, the gloves can stack up one behind the other in as space efficient a manner as possible. Also, because the gloves all have a common orientation (i.e., with their pockets facing forward), the system displays the gloves in an aesthetically attractive manner.
The clip preferably comprises a one piece member configured to define (i) a body portion, (ii) a hook, and (iii) at least one spring finger extending away from the body portion and being resiliently deflectable relative to the body portion, to enable the predetermined portion of the product to be captured between the spring finger and the body portion. Further, the body portion can include a recess for supporting display material related to the product.
Also according to the preferred embodiment, the support device at the forward end of each hanger arm comprises a plate coupled with the forward end of the hanger arm, and a display device is connected with the support plate. The display device is configured to support at least one segment of material which provides information (e.g., graphical and/or textual) which relates to the type of product on the hanger arm.
The system enables gloves to be organized in ways that make it simple and efficient for a customer m make a selection of a glove that meets the customer's particular needs. For example, the system enables gloves to be organized by type, quality, price, etc. Moreover, the displays associated with the hanger arms inform customers as to what types of gloves are found on the hanger arms, what sport the gloves are used to play (e.g., baseball, softball), what position(s) the gloves are for (e.g., catcher's mitt, outfielder's glove, etc.), the price range(s) of the gloves, etc.
Further features of the present invention will become further apparent from the following detailed description and the accompanying drawings.